



^«-.'^; 



V 



THE SHARPS RIFLE EPISODE 
IN KANSAS HISTORY 



Bv 



W. H. ISELY 



REPRINTED FROM THE 



g^mi^iatt §ii^t0wal §tvm 



Vol. XII., NO. 3 



APRIL, 1907 



. H. RusseJj. 
7 Mvi907 



[Reprinted from The Amkkh an 1 Ii^iukic ai. Keviiw, \o1. XII., No. 3, April, 1907.] 



THE 'SHARPS RIFLE EPISODE IN KANSAS HISTORY 

The Kansas struggle was indeed the prelude to the Civil War. 
The first armed contlict between the North and the South began, 
not at Fort Sumter in 1861, but on the Wakarusa and at Law- 
rence in 1855. The desperate strife for the possession of this 
virgin soil was the necessary introduction to the awful carnage 
of the sixties. Many leaders on both sides foresaw with remark- 
able clearness that an impending crisis was at hand and that 
Kansas would be a decisive factor in the approaching conflict. 
Senator Atchison of Missouri, writing in September, 1855, to his 
Southern friends who were gathered to celebrate the anniversary 
of the battle at King's Mountain, fervently solicited their aid, say- 
ing that "the [Kansas] contest ... is one of life and death, and 
it will be so with you and your ihstitution if we fail . . . the stake 
the ' border ruffians ' are placing' for is a mighty one ... in a word, 
the prosperity or the ruin of the whole South depends on the 
Kansas struggle." ^ Horace Greeley, but a few months earlier, with 
equal prophetic vision, wrote his celebrated " Rising Cloud " edi- 
torial," predicting that the great battle between Freedom and 
Slavery was at hand ; that the little cloud hovering over a hand- 
ful of people in the far West foreshadowed the coming storm ; 
that the distant rumble of the tempest could already be heard, and 
that the mischief there brewing was not alone for Kansas. No 
wonder that both sides in this great controversy threw themselves 
into the contest with such impetuous intensity, such determination 
and abandonment, often forgetting or ignoring the most vital 
principles of right action, and yet rising to such loftv exhibitions 
of heroism, courage, patience, self-sacrifice, and suffering as to 
move every section of the nation to proffer aid and sympathy. 
" Bleeding Kansas " became a familiar cry in every hamlet ; its 
echoes reverberating across the Atlantic aroused the compassion 
of Europe. Lady Byron, sending sixty-five pounds to Mrs. Stowe, 
requested that the money be spent, not in the purchase of arms, 
but for the relief of those who had " resisted oppression at the 
hazard of life and property ".■' 

'Letter of September 12, New York Tribune, November 2, 1S55, p. 4. 
2 Ibid., April 12, 1855. 
'Ibid., November 14, 1S56. 

(546) 



547 ^t^. H. Isely 

It is the purpose of this article to deal with only one phase of this 
dramatic chapter — the output, source, and distribution of Sharps ' 
rifles, " Beecher Bibles ", and other arms furnished to Kansas emi- 
grants during the free-state struggle. The New England Emi- 
grant Aid Company was accused by politicians and pro-slaverv 
partizans of having initiated the policy of arming. A large por- 
tion of the press and the non-resistance, Garrisonian abolitionists 
joined in the cry of condemnation. " Sharps Rifles " became a bv- 
word for dispute and controversy. It absorbed the attention of the 
United States Senate. Congress appointed committees to discover 
how, when, and by whom arms were sent to Kansas. It vexed 
the national executive, and when Thaddeus Hyatt, W. F. M. Arney, 
and Edward Daniels called on President Pierce, demanding pro- 
tection for Kansas settlers, the committee was given a cold rebuft' 
and informed that " Bibles rather than . . . Sharps rifles " should 
have been sent to Kansas.^ State political conventions likewise 
denounced the policy ; such a convention at Lexington. Missouri, 
in 1855, charged the New England Company " with recruiting 
armies and hiring fanatics to go to Kansas " } But Sumner warmly 
defended the Emigrant Aid Company on the floor of the Senate.* 

The officers of the company also entered a general denial. Its 
secretary, Thomas H. Webb, in reply to an inquiry from Sumner, 
wrote that " the company had never sent, or paid for sending guns, 
cannon, pistols or other weapons to Kansas . . . The company had 
sent saw mills, grist mills, various kinds of machinery, also Bibles 
and a great variety of religious, literary and scientific books." ^ 
Amos A. Lawrence, treasurer, and Anson J. Stone, assistant 
treasurer, both testified before a Congressional investigating com- 
mittee that the company had never employed any of its capital 
for firearms." A few men openly favored arming the colonists, 
among whom Henry Ward Beecher stands as the most celebrated. He 
is reported in the Neii> York Tribune as saying that " he believed 
that the Sharps rifle was a truly moral agency, and that there was 
more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slave- 
holders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred Bib'es. You 

' Erroneously spelled " Sharpes " and " Sharp's ". One Christian Sharps was 
the inventor of the gun ; and " Sharps " is the correct form. 
^New York Tribune, September 3, 1856. 
3 Congressional Globe, 34 Cong., i Sess., Appendix, p. 288. 
< Ibid., p. 537- 

5 Manuscript Letter-book of New England Emigrant Aid Company, March 
14, 1856. 

6 Report of the Special Committee on the Troubles in Kansas. Serial 869, 
34 Cong., I Sess., House Report 200, pp. 878, 880, 886. 

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. .XU. — 36. 



77/6' Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 548 

might just as well . . . read the Bible to BuiYaloes as to those fel- 
lows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow ; but they have a su- 
preme respect for the logic that is embodied in Sharps rifles."^ 
From this date Sharps rifles became popularly known as " Beecher 
Bibles ". 

As a rule free-state advocates did not speak so frankly. The 
question of arms forced itself before the Cleveland convention, 
assembled in June, 1856, to devise means for Kansas relief; but 
the sentiment expressed by the majority was opposed to such a 
policy. Dr. Vincent of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, did take the position 
that Kansas farmers needed " rifles and revolvers " ; and Colonel 
Nichols, a Kansas representative, insisted that protection of life 
and property was the first great need, that " men will not plow 
when they expect to be shot in the furrow, they will not build 
while the incendiary stands ready to apply the torch ". But C. W. 
Younglove of Cleveland, in opposition to such views, said " that 
Ohio looked to the ballot box rather than to the cartridge box 
as the remedy for the troubles in Kansas " ; while D. Wright of 
Albany " wanted to hear no talk " about sending armed men to 
the territory.^ It however seems probable that those favoring armed 
resistance to domination of the border ruflians generally remained 
silent, but worked all the more vigorously to secure such ends. 
At any rate the various Kansas aid committees, shortly after the 
adjournment of this convention, began issuing to the thousands 
of individuals contributing aid a handsome lithographed certificate, 
probably designed by William Barnes of Albany, which contained 
in a conspicuous place the following significant clause from the 
Federal Constitution : " A well regulated Militia being necessary 
to the Security of a FREE STATE the Right of the People to keep 
and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Thus in spite of presi- 
dential proclamations, indignant politicians, enraged Missouri 
slaveholders, demagogues, theorists, timid but well-meaning citi- 
zens, and the strenuous effort of regular troops, detailed to inter- 
cept arms sent across the territorial borders, a large supply was 
constantly passing into Kansas. 

Before detailing how these arms were secured, and how and by 
whom sent to Kansas, it will be well to recall some historical facts, 
well known, but essential to this entire subject. Stephen A. Dou- 
glas, able, ambitious, unscrupulous, startled the nation in January, 

' Ne'v York Tribune, February 8, 1856, p. 6. 

2 These quotations are from a pamphlet, loaned by Hon. William Barnes, 
describing the proceedings of the Cleveland and Buffalo conventions of June and 
July, 1856, pp. 3-4. 



549 ^^'- H. Isely 

1854, by proposing to apply squatter sovereignty to the Kansas- 
Nebraska country, a territory already consecrated to freedom by 
the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In May his bill became a law. 
The abrogation of the Missouri Compromise was complete ; Slavery 
had scored another great triumph ; the opposition was paralyzed. 
But Eli Thayer of Worcester, Massachusetts, came forward as 
the man of the hour. He -would checkmate the pro-slavery pro- 
gramme by colonizing this new territory with free-state men. To 
accomplish this end he at once chartered the Massachusetts Emi- 
grant Aid Company, later rechartered as the New England Emi- 
grant Aid Company, with an authorized capital stock of one million 
dollars. He secured the assistance and co-operation of many of 
the ablest men of New England and New York, among the most 
active being Amos A. Lawrence, Edward Everett Hale, Dr. ^Samuel 
Cabot, J. M. S. Williams, Horace Greeley, C. J. Higginson, George 
L. Stearns, Dr. S. G. Howe, and John Carter Brown. 

While the company afforded no direct pecuniary aid to the 
emigrant, it widely advertised the advantages of the new territory ; 
it organized the emigrants into companies, securing for them mu- 
tual aid and protection ; travel rates to those going under the 
auspices of the company were reduced one-half; it established, in 
advance of emigration, town-sites, such as Lawrence, Topeka, Osa- 
watomie, Manhattan, Hampden, and Wabaunsee, and at these points 
erected sawmills, grist-mills, school-houses, and churches. These 
company towns at once became the great free-state centres in the 
territory. Opposition to the Douglas measure was universal through- 
out the North, and the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa 
furnished a larger proportion of free-state settlers than any other 
section ; yet it was this New England company that supplied the 
plan and the organization and gave the direction and inspiration 
to the whole free-state movement ; and when the prairies of Kansas 
were swept by fire and sword, it was to the Boston society that 
the afflicted pioneers first turned for protection, comfort, and ma- 
terial relief. 

Dr. Charles Robinson, S. C. Pomeroy, and Charles H. Brans- 
comb were employed to serve the Emigrant Aid Company in Kan- 
sas. Pomeroy was the head representative and the purchasing 
agent for the company. Robinson, however, soon developed as 
the real leader in general affairs. He was well fitted for such 
grave responsibility, for he had been through the California trou- 
bles, and was by nature shrewd, cool, determined, and an able 
judge of men and of the future. While other leaders had important 
and often more picturesque parts, it was the mind of Robinson 



The Sharps Rijlc Episode in Kansas Plistoi y 550 

that shaped the free-state programme; it was Robinson that stood 
as the chosen leader of the band of men and women as heroic as 
the founders of riymouth and as brave as the farmers wlio stood 
in hne at Lexington. In August, 1854, the present town-site of 
Lawrence was established. During that fall seven companies were 
sent from New England ; by June of the following year eleven 
more entered the promised land. These companies consisted each 
of from ten to more than two hundred persons. These early set- 
tlers were sober, industrious, God-fearing ; they generally came un- 
armed, interested only in peaceable husbandry and in the estab- 
lishment of a free state. 

The easiest approach to the territory was by steamboat through 
Missouri. As boatload after boatload of detested Yankees and 
Northern settlers passed up the tawny river, the naturally hospitable 
Missouri slaveholder was surprised, astounded, then disturbed ; and 
as the volume of Northern emigration swelled in numbers, his soul 
was filled with fury and bitter hatred. Even at the present day 
different sections of the Union seriously misjudge each other; but 
in 1854 an impassable gulf intervened between free and slave sec- 
tions. They could never fairly comprehend each other's motives. 
To the slave-owner the " peculiar institution " was God-ordained ; 
it was inextricably bound up with his whole industrial and social 
system. By what principle did these " pauper " laborers and abo- 
lition fanatics dare to approach the borders of western Missouri and 
disturb the already unstable equilibrium of a slave community? 
Had it not been agreed that Nebraska should be a free state and 
that Kansas should be a slave state ? Was not this a fair propo- 
sition? If threats and bluster would not deter these Northern in- 
terlopers, then more serious measures must be employed. In June, 
1854, before a single Eastern colony had set foot on Kansas soil, 
the Platte County Argus declared that 

they [Northern emigrants] must be met, if need be, with the rifle. 
We must meet them at the very threshold and scourge them back to 
their caverns of darkness. They have made the issue, and it is for us to 
meet and repel them, even at the point of the bayonet. 

Prompt steps were taken to put this programme into practice. 
In October, 1854, an unsuccessful efi'ort was made to drive Robin- 
son and his associates from Lawrence.' In November the first 
territorial election was held. Seventeen hundred and twenty-nine- 
armed Missourians crossed the border and elected Whitfield dele- 
gate to Congress. In the meantime Reeder was appointed governor. 

'Frank W. Blackmar, Tlie Life of Charles Robinson (Topeka, 1902), p. 118. 
- Leverett \V. Spring, Kansas (Boston, 1885), p. 41. 



551 W.H.Iscly 

The census taken under his direction in February, 1855, gave the 
total number of voters in the territory as 2,905.' 

On ^larch 30, 1855, occurred the election for members to both 
branches of the territorial legislature. This election was of su- 
preme importance. A committee appointed by Congress to in- 
vestigate it reported that with a fair election the free-state party 
would have had a majority in both branches.^ But unprincipled 
leaders, at the head of a motley, unwashed mob of ruffians, drunk 
with bad whisky and armed with cannon and every variety of 
small arms, overran the border and turned impending defeat into 
a glorious victory, electing to the legislature every pro-slavery 
candidate save one. Out of a total of 6,307 votes,'' 4,908 were cast 
by residents of Missouri. The upholders of slavery were jubilant; 
the friends of freedom dismayed. 

The second Missouri invasion left Kansas prostrate and com- 
pletely in the hands of the pro-slavery power. According to the 
dominant crowd at Washington, squatter sovereignty was working 
successfully. But the free-state settlers indicated no intention of 
giving up the field. Robinson, prompt in action, boldly proposed to 
repudiate the " bogus " legislature, arm the free-state people, and 
defend the sacred rights of the citizens of Kansas. On April 2, only 
three days after the election, Robinson wrote to Eli Thayer,* de- 
scribing very completely the Missouri outrages, and appealed for 
arms: 

Our people have now formed themselves into four military com- 
panies, and will meet to drill till they have perfected themselves in the 
art. Also, companies are being formed in other places, and we want 
arms. Give us the weapons and every man from the North will be a 
soldier and die in his tracks if necessary, to protect and defend our 
rights. . . . 

Cannot your secret society send us 200 Sharps rifles as a loan till 
this question is settled? Also a couple of field-pieces? If they will do 
that. I think they will be zcell used, and preserved. I have given our 
people encouragement to expect something of the kind, and hope we 
shall not be disappointed. Please inform me what the prospect is in 
this direction. 

If the Governor sets this election aside, we of course must have 
another, and shall need to be up and dressed. 

In great haste, 

Very respectfully, 

C. Robinson. 

To Hon. Eli Thayer, Worcester, Mass. 

' Serial 869, 34 Cong., i Sess., House Report 200, p. 9. 

^Ibid., 34. 

' Ibid., 30. 

• Blackmar, Life of Robinson, pp. 131-133. 



The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 552 

On April 9 Robinson wrote an almost identical letter to Edward 
Everett Hale/ one of the most active members of the Emigrant Aid 
Company, strongly urging that two himdred rifles and two field- 
pieces be sent at once to Lawrence. But, not satisfied with the un- 
certainties of correspondence, he now despatched George W. Deitzler, 
who was in his employ as clerk of the Emigrant Company, with a 
second letter to Thayer again asking for rifles. Mr. Deitzler, who 
later attained the rank of brigadier-general during the Civil War, 
described the result of this mission in a letter written for the " Old 
Settlers' Meeting " in 1879, in which he tells of his appointment by 
Robinson and his trip to Worcester and Boston, and how he got the 
desired Sharps rifles : 

Within an hour after our arrival in Boston, the executive committee 
of the Emigrant Aid Society held a meeting and delivered to me an 
order for one hundred Sharps rifles and I started at once for Hart- 
ford, arriving there on Saturday evening. The guns were packed on 
the following Sunday and I started for home on Monday morning. The 
boxes were marked " Books." I took the precaution to have the (cap) 
cones removed from the guns and carried them in my carpet sack, 
which sack would have been missing in the event of the capture of the 
guns by the enemy. . . . 

I have not referred to this transaction from any motives of personal 
vanitv, but simply to revive a feeling of gratitude toward Mr, Thayer 
and his associates for the kind and patriotic assistance rendered by 
them to the free state people from the beginning to the end of the 
great struggle which terminated, happily, in the overthrow of American 
Slavery, and to show how promptly they gave attention to the business 
which took me to Boston. Those rifles did good service in the " border 
war." ... It was perhaps the first shipment of arms for our side 
and it incited a healthy feeling among the unarmed free state settlers, 
which permeated and energized them until even the Quakers were 
ready to fight } 

The Boston end of this transaction appears in the following 

letter from the secretary of the New England aid society which has 

but recently come to notice :^ 

No. 3 Winter St. 
Dr. Charles Robinson, Boston, May 8th 1855. 

Dear Sir: 

Mr. Deitzler presented himself at this office on W'ednesday last, with 
a letter from Mr. Thayer relative to a certain business intrusted to him : 
no one in this village having received any advices. 

We were busily occupied in getting ready for special meeting No. 2, 

1 MS. private letters in possession of Edward Everett Hale. 

'Charles S, Gleed (editor), The Kansas Memorial, a Report of the Old 
Settlers' Meeting held at Bismarck Grove, Kansas, September 15th and i6th, iS~g 
(Kansas City, Mo., 1880), pp. 184-185. 

3 From MS. Letter-book of New England Emigrant Aid Company, vol. I., 
p. 146. 



553 ^^- H. Isciy 

called by special invitation to see if we could raise funds for more Mills; 
still considering the exigencies of the case we ventured to lend a help- 
ing hand to help forward the movement, although by so doing we pushed 
out for the time being, as we apprehended would be the case, our legiti- 
mate business. I eventually arranged, with the aid of Dr. Cabot, so 
as to take the risk of ordering, in all one hundred machines, at a cost 
of about three thousand dollars, taking our chances hereafter to raise 
the money. I shall obligate myself to the subscribers to return these in 
due time or a satisfactory equivalent therefore, should they on trial be 
approved and meet with purchasers. You will therefore govern 
yourself accordingly and deliver them to none but trustworthy in- 
dividuals. . . . 

I am free to say, had your letter [a letter received after the arrival 
of Deitzler, describing some of the factious conditions in Lawrence] 
arrived forty-eight hours earlier, myself and others would have been 
little, if at all disposed to exert ourselves, as we have done, at so much 
expense of time and money, to procure machines for the improvement 
of Lawrence. Rather we should have seconded the suggestion of one 
of our most influential coadjutors, which was to advise you and other 
friends to quit L., abandon it to its impending fate, and seek a location 
at another spot, where more harmony and good will would be likely to 
prevail. . .• . 

We shall await with much interest further intelligence from you in 
relation to the matters herein referred to. Please telegraph us the 
result of the election at the earliest moment, and write us the details 
before the intelligence becomes stale. Hoping that all will yet come 
out right, I remain, 

Yours truly, 

Thom.^s H. Webb. 

This first shipment of rifles soon reached Kansas. A corre- 
spondent for the Milwaukee Sentinel,^ writing from Lawrence, 
May 23, states that intense excitement was produced in the minds 
of pro-slavery people by the arrival " of five boxes of books, which, 
on being opened, proved to be, instead of books, one hundred of 
Sharps rifles ". Threats and imprecations were loud and long. 
The Emigrant Aid Company was denounced as trying to overawe 
Western men. Even James H. Lane, who had but recently come to 
Kansas and was still in sympathy with the pro-slavery element, urged 
sending the rifles back to Massachusetts.- They never went back. 
The very name " Sharps rifle " was to become a term to sober the 
border ruffian and give him serious pause. This breech-loading 
rifle was a new invention and extremely effective :^ in comparison, 
the Missourian was poorly armed, carrying either a squirrel-rifle, 
a heavy buffalo-gun, or a clumsy army musket. This difference in 

* Charles Robinson, The Kausas Conflict (Lawrence, Kansas, i8g8), p. 128. 

•New York Tribune, June 15, 1S55, p. 6. 

' The Sharps rifle " is one of the very oldest successful guns of the breech- 
loading class, and the first in which a vertically sliding breech-block was em- 
ployed." E. H. Knight, American Mechanical Dictionary, s. v. Rifle. 



The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 554 

armament probably explains why the free-state bands, though usu- 
ally outnumbered, were invariably victorious in all open fighting. 

Several other letters have been found in reference to this first 
shipment of arms, but give little additional information. The fol- 
lowing extract from a letter written July 15, 1855, by Amos A. 
Lawrence, treasurer of the Emigrant Aid Company, to Franklin 
Pierce, however, shows how thoroughly this rich Boston merchant 
had entered into the Kansas struggle. He boldly tells the President 
that since the government had given no protection to the settlers in 
Kansas and since " they must defend themselves; and therefore 
manv persons here who refused at first (myself included) have ren- 
dered them assistance, by furnishing them the means of defense." ^ 

But Robinson was not satisfied with one hundred rifles, and 
stirred up his kinsman, Lawrence, who on July 20, 1855, writes to 
the secretary, Thomas H. Webb : " When farmers turn soldiers they 
must have arms. Write to Hartford and get their terms for one 
hundred more of the Sharps rifles at once." - Here is the beginning 
of the second installment of rifles. About the same time James B. 
Abbott was sent from the territory on a mission similar to the one 
which carried Deitzler to Boston. These letters tell the story r 

Lawrence. July 26, 1835. 

Mr. Thayer — Dear Sir : The bearer, J. B. Abbott, is a resident of 
this district, on the Wakarusa, about four miles from Lawrence. There 
is a military company formed in his neighborhood, and they are anxious 
to procure arms. Mr. Abbott is a gentleman in whom you can place 
implicit confidence, and is true as steel to the cause of freedom in 
Kansas. In my judgment the rifles in Lawrence have had a vcr'y good 
effect, and I think the same kind of instruments in other places would 
do more to save Kansas than almost anything else. Anything you 
can do for Mr. Abbott will be gratefully appreciated by the people of 
Kansas. We are in the midst of a revolution, as you will see by the 
papers. How we shall come out of the furnace, God only knows. That 
we have got to enter it, some of us, there is no doubt ; but we are ready 
to be offered. 

In haste, very respectfully yours, for freedom for a world, 

C. Robinson. 

Upon the above letter appear the following two indorsements, 
which tell their own story : 

Office of the New Engl.\nd Emigrant Aid Company, 
No. 3 Winter street, Boston, Aug. 10, 1855. 
Dr. Charles Robinson, within mentioned, is an agent of the Emigrant 

'William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence (Boston, 1.8SS). p. 95. 
' Ibid.. 96. 

"Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, vol. I.-II. (Topeka, 
1881), p. 222. 



555 ^^- H. Iscly 

Aid Company, and is worthy of implicit confidence. We cheerfully 
recommend Mr. J. B. Abbott to the public. 

C. H. Branscomb, Secretary pro tern. 

Boston, August ii, 1855.' 
Dear Sir : Request Mr. Palmer to have one hundred Sharps rifles 
packed in casks, like hardware, and to retain them subject to my order. 
Also to send the bill to me by mail. I will pay it either with my note, 
according to the terms agreed on between him and Dr. Webb, or in cash 
less interest at seven per cent, per annum. 

Yours truly, 

Amos A. Lawrence. 
Mr. J. B. Abbott, care of A. Rogers. Hartford, Conn. 

A second letter to Abbott is as follows : 

Boston, August 20, 1855.' 
My Dear Sir: This installment of carbines is far from being 
enough, and I hope the measures you are taking will be followed up 
until every organized company of trusty men in the Territory shall be 
supplied. Dr. Cabot will give me the names of any gentlemen here who 
subscribe money, and the amoimt — of which I shall keep a memorandum, 
and promise them that it shall be repaid either in cash, or in rifles, when- 
ever it is settled that Kansas shall not be a province of Missouri. There- 
fore, keep them in capital order, and above all, take good care that they do 
not fall into the hands of the Missourians after you once get them into 
use. 

You must dispose of these where they will do the most good, and 
for this purpose you should advise with Dr. Robinson and Mr. Pomeroy. 

Yours truly, 

Amos A. Lawrence. 
Mr. James B. Abbott, care of A. Rogers, Hartford. 

Among the Lawrence papers can still be found the identical 
memorandum above mentioned giving a full list of these subscribers ; 
the memorandum is indorsed in the handwriting of Mr. Lawrence 
as follows : 

Money received from various persons to make up the sum expended 
by me for rifles for the defense of the Kansas settlers. $2,670 or there- 
abouts. Aug. 24, 1855. 

The list of subscribers, in the writing of Dr. Cabot, is as follows : 

Dr. Cabot ,240 Henry Lee 50 

Cunningham Bro. 100 P. S. Crowell 25 

Wendell Phillips 

J. M. Forbes 

J. Bertram 

G. Howland Shaw 

Sam A. Eliot 

Theo Lyman 

^ Ibid, 223. 
2 Ibid. 



100 


Gerrit Smith 


250 


300 


W. R. Lawrence 


100 


100 


Calvin Hall 


50 


100 


L. B. Russell 


25 


100 


E. R. Hoar 


25 


100 


Sam Hoar 


50 




A. A. Lawrence 


955 



The Sharps Rifle Episode in Ka}isas History 556 

In the same collection is also a brief note dated September 25, 
1855, from J. M. S. Williams, another very prominent director of 
the company, in which he says he " encloses a check for one hundred 
dollars for the Kansas ' Books ' ". 

Abbott, after securing the order for one hundred rifles from the 
officers of the Emigrant Aid friends, proceeded to Hartford, Provi- 
dence, and New York City for the purpose of getting one hundred 
additional guns, but could raise only enough funds to purchase 
seventeen rifles/ The entire lot was hurried to Kansas, to be used 
if need be in the October election for delegates to the Topeka Con- 
stitutional Convention.- These rifles were intended only to defend 
the rights of the settlers against Missouri interference. On August 
10 Lawrence had written Robinson, approving resistance to bogus 
laws, but counselled that no resistance should be made to the federal 
government,^ a policy consistently followed by Robinson and the 
Boston society throughout the entire struggle. 

Major Abbott spent several weeks in New York City. On 
August 18 he wrote Amos Lawrence: 

I came to this city yesterday and have seen some of the gentlemen 
to whom I have letters. They all seemed to favor the measure after 
a little hesitation and I doubt not we shall be able to get something here 
that will not only strengthen the hearts but the hands of our friends in 
Kansas.* 

Greeley, Field, Priestly, Elliot, and Perkins are named as giving 
assistance. But he seems to have especially interested Frederick 
Law Olmsted, the well-known writer of antislavery literature, 
whom he appointed " Acting Commissioner " to raise funds for the 
Kansas cause, sufficient in amount to purchase another hundred 
Sharps rifles. Olmsted secured only about four hundred dollars, 
which, on the advice of a veteran army officer, he invested in a 
howitzer and some ammunition. ° The gun left New York in 
October ; it reached Lawrence in December at the beginning of the 
Wakarusa war. On May 21, 1856, at the sacking of Lawrence, 
this gun was carried ofif by Captain H. T. Titus and his South Caro- 
lina men. Captain Samuel Walker, of the Lawrence guards, pledged 
himself to its recovery within six months' time. Well did he keep 
his promise. On August 16 he stormed Fort Titus, captured its 
commander, and then extorted from Governor Shannon a stipulation 

' Transaclions of the Kansas Historical Society, I.-II. 221. 

' Ibid. 

^Lawrence, Life of Lazcrence, pp. 99-101. 

* Amos A. Lawrence Collection of MS. letters. 

° Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society, I.-II. 224. 



557 ^J'- H. Isely 

that the howitzer, which had not yet been retaken, should be ex- 
changed for his distinguished prisoner.' During the troubles in 
southeastern Kansas, some years later, the howitzer was brought into 
prominent service, and in 1861 was carried by Lane into Missouri. - 
The gun is now on exhibition in the rooms of the Kansas State His- 
torical Society, Topeka, and is known as the Abbott Howitzer. 

The next phase of the rifle question comes under the direction of 
Dr. Sanuiel Cabot, perhaps the most active Boston director of the 
Emigrant Aid Company. He rarely missed attending the weekly 
executive committee meetings of that organization. The executive 
committee seems to have appointed him as a special committee on 
" rifles " during the summer of 1855, but the only notice found is in 
a letter bv Webb to Lawrence, dated January 29, 1856,'' stating that 
" Dr. Cabot is treasurer of the Rifle fund." He was a man of few 
words, but active and influential ; he was in thorough harmony with 
the policy of arming the prairie colonists and devoted much of his 
professional time to this service. A very few of Dr. Cabot's papers 
still exist, and are now in the possession of the ]\Iassachusetts His- 
torical Society. The most important number in this collection is a 
small account-book, which contains no comments ; all accounts are 
in the writing of Dr. Cabot, and on one cover, in pencil, also in the 
hand of Dr. Cabot, appears the single but significant word " Rifles ". 
This account-book w^as clearly intended for personal use, hence some 
of the memoranda'are indefinite ; but the main features are clear and 
complete. The name of every donor, with amount given, is listed. 
The first collection was made in August, 1855, the last one Sep- 
tember 18, 1857. About $12,500 passed through Dr. Cabot's hands 
for the defense of the free-state people in Kansas. The bulk of these 
contributions came from New England, a few from New York state, 
and $2,500 from the Kansas National Aid Committee. Under ex- 
penditures, it appears that the largest sums were paid to Palmer 
and Company, agents for Sharps rifles ; the various items, including 
a draft for $2,500 to Pomeroy, aggregating about $8,000 and good 
for about 325 rifles. Of the remainder, one thousand is paid to 
A. A. Lawrence on the previous rifle account, and the balance is 
expended for revolvers, bowie-knives, ammunition, and general 
expenses. 

One of the bills of account of the Sharps manufacturing com- 

' Ihid., 226. 
^Ibid., 224. 
' Amos A. Lawrence Collection. 



The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 558 

panv is still preserved among the Cabot papers/ This bill was 
drawn on S. C. Pomeroy, purchasing agent of the Emigrant Aid 
Compan_v in Kansas ; but the rifles listed in it were for a long time 
in the hands of the " enemy '". Along with four breech-loading 
cannon, these rifles were originally placed in the care of David Starr 
Hovt. of Deerfield, to be conveyed by him to Kansas Territory.- 
While he was on board the river steamboat Arabia, a letter written 
by Hoyt to his mother, announcing his successful departure from 
St. Louis and describing how his precious guns were safe in the 
hold of the vessel, fell into the hands of the captain of the Arabia. 
The letter was read by the captain to the passengers, many of whom 
were border ruffians, and created intense excitement. A mob took 
possession of Hoyt and his companion, William B. Parsons, and 
voted to throw them into the Missouri River, but were persuaded 
from this course by Charles Keurney of Westport. When the boat 
tied up at Lexington, it was surrounded by a thousand armed 
Missourians. Hoyt was ordered by the leaders of the mob to sign 
a surrender of the arms, but although repeatedly threatened with 
death, he positively refused ; the arms were then forcibly removed. 
All that Hovt could show S. C. Pomeroy, whom he met some hours 
later in Kansas City, was a schedule indorsed " Taken from D. S. 
Hoyt the following described property, to be delivered to the order 
of Wilson Shannon. Governor of Kansas Territory, or his successor 
in office ". The guns, however, were useless, as Dr. Calvin Cutter 
had carried the breech-blocks to Kansas by a different route, an 

action characterized by the border ruffians as a " d Yankee 

trick ". 

Hoyt at once returned to St. Louis, libelled the Arabia, and col- 
lected the full value of the arms given up by the officers of the boat 

'"Hartford, Ct., March 19, 1856. 
Gen'I Sam'l C. Pomeroy, 

To Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co., Dr. 

For 100 Carbines, @ $30 3,000.00 

Less 10 % 300.00 

" 29 Sharps Primers 

" 20 Bullet Moulds (Box 50 c) 

" 10 Boxes 

By draft on S. Cabot, Jr., i day sight 
" this amount allowed as agreed 

Balance due $1,286.56" 

The bill also contains a complete list of the numbers of each rifle. 

' A full account is given in " David Starr Hoyt ", by William B. Parsons, 
Kansas Magazine, 11. 42-45. 





2,700.00 


@ $lj^ 


32.62 


@ $1 


20.50 


@ $2 


20.00 




$2,773-12 


$1,286.56 




200.00 


1,486.56 



559 JI'- H. Iscly 

at Lexington. Several weeks later the brave Hoyt was treacherously 
murdered near Fort Saunders by his inveterate enemies, but the rifles 
continued to make history. The Boston gentlemen were naturally 
anxious to secure possession of this property, but felt a little awkward 
and embarrassed. " If we were not officers of the Emigrant Aid 
Company we could get them by suit," wrote Lawrence, " but whether 
we can do so by proxy remains to be seen." In 1857 Governor 
Geary signed an order for these arms, but it was only after a lengthy 
suit, brought in 1858-1859, in the name of the law firm of Knox and 
Kellogg, St. Louis, that the company's agents finally recovered them.^ 
Probably owing to the recent foray of John Brown into Missouri, 
the company seemed loath to forward these rifles to Kansas, finally 
doing so on the solicitation of Martin F. Conway, who had taken 
Pomeroy's post as the general Kansas agent. Only one paragraph 
of his letter, March 10, 1859, in reference to this matter need here 
be inserted : 

I am not absolutely sure that we shall have no further use for arms 
ill Kansas, though the probability is in that direction. This skin hunt- 
ing business may engender a strife with Missouri. We cannot tell 
what [a] day or an hour may bring forth in this matter. But even 
supposing Kansas out of the question, the arms had better be here than 
in Boston, or even in St Louis, for if they are needed against the Slave 
Power, I take it that the first point of need will be South and South- 
west of us.' I shall therefore, dispatch an order for them. I do not 
see how they would be in greater danger here than in St Louis.' 

Thus these rifles were finally brought to Kansas. John Brown's 
raid into southwest Missouri had invited retaliatory raids into 
Kansas. Hence after several urgent requests these particular rifles 
were transferred in i860 to James Montgomery and employed by 
him in the Fort Scott troubles.^ 

EH Thayer probably gave more money for arming Kansas settlers 
than any other person : according to his own testimony he con- 
tributed $4,500 " for the purchase of rifles and cannon "." Only a 
portion of his expenditures have been traced ; the Cabot account 
shows a donation by Thayer of five hundred dollars. In 1855 he 
sent two cases of Millbury rifles to Kansas, containing forty guns, 
and valued at one thousand dollars. '^ At a public meeting, February 
9, 1856, in the city hall of Worcester, Thayer assisted in raising 

' See Cabot Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society. 

2 Probably referring to the secret eflforts of the Emigrant Aid Company to 
inaugurate antislavery colonization in Texas. 
^ Cabot Collection. 
' See Montgomery letters, Cabot Collection. 

5 Eli Thayer, The New England Emigrant Aid Company (Worcester, 1887), 
p. 46. 

6 Letter of T. W. Higginson, Cabot Collection. 



The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 560 

monev for the purcliasc of twenty-three Sharps rifles, he himself 
contributing ten of this number.' The minutes'- of the executive 
committee of the free-state part_v at Lawrence reveal still further 
activity by Thayer in this business. But it is impossible to catalogue 
all the arms furnished directly or indirectly by the directors of the 
Emigrant Aid Company. Enough has been given to show the great 
activity of the members of this organization and the large scale on 
which arms were furnished to the free-state people. 

Through the efforts of Thayer a Connecticut Kansas colony was 
organized in New Haven, including many Yale graduates ; and it 
started west on Alarch 31, 1856. A few days before, a farewell ser- 
vice was held in North Church, Henry Ward Beecher delivering the 
address. Professor Benjamin Silliman presided at this meeting, and 
at its conclusion stated that no provision had been made for properly 
equipping the party with arms : he therefore appealed to the audi- 
ence to provide fifty rifles. Beecher promptly responded, agreeing 
to give $625, which would pay for half the number, if the other half 
should be given by those present." The full amount was soon 
secured. On the following day the senior class of Yale College pur- 
chased an extra rifle for Hon. C. B. Lines, the leader of the party. 
On the day of departure Beecher was again present and presented 
each man in the company with a Bible and a Sharps rifle. 

" We gratefully accept the bibles," said the leader of the colony, 
'' as the only sure foundation on which to erect free institutions. . . . 
We . . . accept the weapons also, and, like our fathers, we go with 
the bible to indicate the peaceful nature of our mission and the harmless 
character of our company, and a weapon to teach those who may he 
disposed to molest us (if any such there be) that while we determine to 
do that which is right we will not submit tamely to that which is 
wrong." " We will not forget you," said [Mr.] Beecher. ..." Every 
morning breeze shall catch the blessings of our prayers and roll them 
westward to your prairie home." 

The combined stupidity and criminality of Pierce, in permitting 
the sacking of Lawrence and the wide-spread reign of murder and 
pillage in the territory, created a passionate feeling of indignation 
throughout the North. The ashes of Lawrence, the outpost of free- 
dom, and the blood of the fallen in Kansas must be avenged. 
" Money, Sharps rifles, recruits ", was the angry cry. The New 
York Tribune, on the suggestion of a subscriber, announced that it 
would receive one-dollar subscriptions for Kansas relief ; in a very 

'Eli Thayer. A History of the Kansas Cnisade (New York, 1889). p. 176; 
New York Tribune, February 15, 1856. 

' Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society, VII. 525. 
' Gleed, The Kansas Memorial, p. 122. 
■•Spring, Kansas, p. 165. 



56 1 ir. H. Isely 

brief tiir.e over $22,000 was subscribed, most of it in dollar sums,^ 
Aid committees sprang into existence in almost every Northern 
village. These in turn were consolidated into state committees. 
How far all these organizations furnished arms cannot at present be 
determined. The committees in Massachusetts, New York, and 
Wisconsin were exceptionally active. No account has been found of 
the expenditures of the Wisconsin committee. The Kansas Com- 
mittee of New York published a full report, and according to this 
report $643.37 was expended for Sharps rifles. In the secretary's 
minutes of April, 1856, of that organization there appears a letter to 
Pomeroy stating that the committee had purchased twenty-five 
Sharps rifles, thus corresponding with the treasurer's report. 

The Kansas State Committee of Massachusetts had been gradu- 
ally evolved from a subcommittee of the Emigrant Aid Company. 
As it developed, it finally came under the efficient management of 
George L. Stearns. This committee raised over $48,000 and a large 
amount of clothing for Kansas sufferers. The treasurer's report of 
this committee is among the Emigrant Aid Company's papers, and 
records the fact that five thousand ($4,947.88) dollars was expended 
for two hundred Sharps rifles. But these rifles never reached 
Kansas : they were consigned to the National Committee and by them 
transported to Tabor, Iowa. Before they could be taken to Kansas, 
Geary, with the co-operation of the free-state leaders, had established 
peace, and such military bands as were not incorporated into the 
state militia were either disarmed or driven from the territory. 

John Brown now entered as an applicant for the Tabor rifles ; 
his fighting on the border had given birth to plans destined to 
bear final fruit at Harpers Ferry ; but his application was refused 
by the National Committee lest he might use them in another expedi- 
tion into Missouri.^ Brown, however, had strong sympathizers at 
Boston, and, on the demand of the officers of the Massachusetts 
Kansas Committee, which had originally furnished these arms, the 
Tabor rifles were restored to the Massachusetts committee'* and then 
turned over by its president to John Brown. In due season, these 
two hundred Sharps rifles, originally intended for the defense of the 
free-state people in Kansas, were carried by Brown to the neighbor- 
hood of Harpers Ferry^ and there captured by the Maryland militia- 
men. 

The organization of the Kansas National Aid Committee came as 

^New York Tribune, January 23, 1857. 

2 Serial 1040, 36 Cong., i Sess., Senate Report 278, pp. 245, 247. 

' Ibid., 226-249, passim. 

* Ibid., 7, 51. 236-237. 



1 lie Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas Hist n-y 562 

a climax to the various state efforts to aid the free-state cause. The 
moveir.ent for a national committee was general, but exceptionally 
vigorous in Ohio ; final organization was effected at Buff'alo in July, 
1856. Thayer and Barnes planned the details of this committee ; 
Thaddeus Hyatt was chosen president ; and the committee had head- 
quarters in Chicago, with Harvey B. Hurd as secretary and Horace 
White as assistant secretary. At the only general meeting of the 
committee, held in New York City, January, 1857, it was reported 
that two thousantl emigrants and fifty tons of clothing had been 
sent to Kansas ; and that the committee had raised and expended 
ninety thousand dollars in the direct aid and support of the free- 
state cause.' The men composing the two thousand emigrants were 
generally armed, many of these arms being furnisiied by the 
National Committee ; but since no printed report was ever made of 
its expenditures, it is impossible to give details. Fortunatel}' there 
exists the testimony of Horace White, given before the Harpers 
Ferry Congressional investigating committee, in which he states that 
the National Committee expended about ten thousand dollars for 
arms.- This then nsust be accepted as the amount spent by the 
Chicago organization for arming purposes. 

At least one free state furnished arms direct from its arsenal for 
fighting in Kansas. Iowa had sent many of her sons to the territory 
and, being so near the border, was materially interested in the con- 
flict. Governor Grimes had also written President Pierce that Iowa 
could not remain indifferent to the treatment of the free-state people 
in Kansas. In the spring of 1856 pro-slavery warriors patrolled the 
Missouri River and excluded Northern emigrants from that great 
highway. Emigration was now forced to follow the wagon-road 
through Iowa and Nebraska: and in August, 1856, some five hundred 
persons had collected in southwestern Iowa, preparatory to crossing 
into Kansas. This is the so-called " Jim Lane Army " ; for though 
Lane had only a small part in collecting these men, he understood 
thoroughly the art of self-advertisement, and by means of Eastern 
newspaper correspondents was given credit for the " whole thing ". 
Thaddeus Hyatt and Dr. S. G. Howe, on behalf of the National 
Committee, forced Lane from liis assumed leadership,"' not even per- 
mitting him to accompany the party into the state. Richardson had 
gathered an army of border ruffians to intercept these emigrants from 
Iowa ; and while most of the incoming free-state men carried arms, 

'New York Tribune. January 27, 1857. 

' Serial 1040, 36 Cong., i Sess., Senate Report 278, p. 247. 
^ Ne^v York Tribune. August 11, 1856; see also Transactions of Kansas His- 
torical Society, VIII. 30S-309. 



563 n: H. Iscly 

there was a large need for an extra supply. Robert Morrow of 
Lawrence, one of the leaders, now applied to Governor Grimes for 
additional arms ; and his own statement tells what was accomplished : 

[The Governor] said if I could get them without compromising 
him I could do so. I had letters to some good friends of Kansas; they 
got the keys to the arsenal, and in the night we loaded up three wagons 
with 200 stands of arms, and they were put into Colonel Eldridge's 
train and brought into Kansas.' 

Geary in the meantime had been made executive of the territory. 
He promptly ordered out five hundred regulars, dispersed Richard- 
son's army, and captured two hundred and forty free-state men 
under Eldridge, who claimed to be bona fide settlers and were set 
free by the Governor and permitted to keep their individual arms; 
but the other implements of war, enumerated in the following report 
by the United States marshal,- he retained: 

Three boxes of navy-revolver pistols, all new, viz. : 6 six- and 5 five- 
shooters ; 12 Colt's, navy size; 24 Colt's, navy size; 4 boxes fixed ball 
cartridges; l bag caps ; a small lot rifle cartridges; I box, 10 Sharps rifles; 
145 breech-loading muskets; 85 percussion muskets; 115 bayonets; 61 
common sabres; 2 officers' sabres, lyi kegs of powder; 61 dragoon 
saddles ; i drum. 

The party had also started with a field-piece, but on hearing of 
the approach of Cooke's dragoons buried the cannon in a well, where 
it remains to the present day. While the party was loath to give 
up these arms, its members had no intention or desire to resist Uncle 
Sam. A year later Governor Denver, rather against his will, was 
persuaded to restore this entire capture of arms to Eldridge and 
his men. 

Very little has been found as to the arming of parties from Mis- 
souri and the South. Nearly all the pro-slavery fighting men came 
from western Missouri, which had long been the frontier, and whose 
inhabitants invariably possessed arms of some sort. The following 
extracts from W. M. Paxton's Annals of Platte County explain how 
some of the pro-slavery men secured arms for the invasion of Kansas : 

Nov. 27, 1855. Liberty Arsenal was surprised and taken by sixty 
pro-slavery men, who took a large supply of arms and ammunition. 
Two wagon-loads were brought to Platte City and hid under the Baptist 
church, then just finished." 

May-20, 1857. A squad of thirty five men was raised in Platte, and 
crossed at Deleware, taking two brass six-pounders. They were organ- 
ized as Missouri militia, and armed by the state. They went to Law- 
rence by way of Franklin.* 

' Ibid., 305. 

-Ibid., IV. 60S. 

MV. M. Paxton, Annals of Platte County. Missouri, p. 209. 

' Ibid., p. 214. 

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XH. — 37. 



The Sharps Rifie Episode in Kansas History 564 

When Jones and Atchison attempted to destroy Lawrence in De- 
cember, 1855, their army of fifteen hundred invaders was partially 
equipped from the state armories at Independence and Lexington. 
Colonel J. i^L Buford.who left Montgomery, Alabama, in April, 1856, 
with three hundred followers, came to Kansas unarmed. On leaving 
Mobile the members of the party were presented each with a Bible, in- 
tended as a rebuke to Beecher. Buford originally intended to have 
bis men go armed, but gave up the plan in deference to President 
Pierce's proclamation of the previous February.^ Each man carried 
only a revolver and a bowie-knife. The expedition reached Kansas 
late in April ; and, under the pro-slavery administration of Shannon. 
Buford's men were promptly enrolled as members of the Kansas 
militia, armed, and paid from the territorial treasury.- Companies 
formed in Missouri were equipped in like manner from the Kansas 
armorv. It was these troops that sacked Lawrence and later estab- 
lished themselves at Franklin, Fort Saunders, Hickory Point, and 
Bull Creek. During August and September they were driven from 
these fortified stations by armed free-state bands. But the arms 
issued to the Buford and Missouri companies were never returned. 
Geary seems to have suspected as much and called on Cramer, in- 
spector-general, to report the disposition of territorial anus; the 
awkward position of the inspector is seen from his report, dated 
Lecompton, K. T., October 2, 1856, of which a portion reads :■■ 

As I have stated to your Excellency a short time since, the arms 
were received here upon the eve of an outbreak, and were furnished 
the different corps of the militia in a hurried and informal manner, and 
the captains of the different companies never appeared at my office to 
give bond according to law. . . . 

A large portion of the arms issued to the militia have been captured 
by the insurgents, though what number I have not been able to ascer- 
tain. . . . 

Hoping the above may be satisfactory under the present circum- 
stances, I respectfully submit it. 

Thomas J. B. Cr.\mer, 

Inspector General, Kansas Militia. 
His Excellency John W. Geary. 

A tabulation of the arms furnished to free-state settlers in 
Kansas, so far as can be ascertained, is as follows : 

' Walter L. Fleming, " The Buford Expedition to Kansas ", Transactions 
of the Alabama Historical Society, IV. i74-'75. 
'Ibid., 182-183. 
' Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society, IV. 592. 



565 



W. H. Isely 



Date 


Furnished By 


Articles 


t'ost 


May, i8S5 


New England Emigrant 
Aid Co. 


100 Sharps'rifles and ammunition 


$3,000.00 


August, " 


New England Emigrant 
Aid Co. 


100 " " " " 


2,670.00 


" 


Abbott 


>7 " " " 


425.00 


Sept., 


Olmsted 


I howitzer " " 


400.00 


" " 


Tliayer 


40 Millbury " 


1,000.00 


1855 and 1856 


Cabot Account ' 


Sharps rifles, revolvers, etc. 


12,443 63 


Feb., 1 85 6 


Thayer and others 


23 Sharps rifles 


575.00 


March, " 


Beecher " " 


51 


1,275.00 


.< i< 


Thaver " 


4 breech-loading cannon 


1,330.00 


April, " 


New York Kansas Com- 
mittee 


25 Sharps rifles and ammunition 


643-37 


July and Au- 


National Kansas Com- 


Arms and ammunition 


10,000.00 


gust, 1856 


mittee 






August, " 


T. W. Higginson^ 
parties 


Arms 


36438 


" 


MassacliuseLts Kansas 
Committee 


200 Sharps rifles 


4,947.88 


Sept., 


State of Iowa 


200 muskets (value estimated) 


4,000.00 



Total, $43,074.26 



The above list is far from complete. It probably contains some 
duplication ; but it is under, rather than above, the true amount. 
Arms were furnished from Wisconsin and also probably by associa- 
tions in Ohio ; the town of Grinnell, Iowa, raised sufficient funds to 
purchase fifteen rifles ■? similar reports were announced from other 
centres, but not on evidence sufficiently definite to be here included. 
The total amount raised for arms by the various Northern associa- 
tions must have exceeded fifty thousand dollars. To this amount 
should then be added the value of arms carried to Kansas by private 
individuals ; but the determination of such amounts does not come 
within the limits of this paper. 

An examination of all the data herein given shows how exten- 
sively every section of the North was involved in supplying arms to 
the free-state forces in Kansas. In recent years various persons 
have been credited with the first honors in this business, but there is 
only one association that can claim first place — the directors and 
officers of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. These 
officers under oath denied that the company had ever sent arms to 
the territory."* Technically, this was probably true, as none of the 
funds subscribed for the company's stock was thus expended : but 
practically the company was directly responsible for arming Kansas 
emigrants. It was the company's agent, Robinson, who applied to 
its chief director for arms ; it was the company's executive committee 

' From Cabot account-book. 

" From personal account-book of Colonel T. W. Higginson. 

'New York Tribune, July 16, 1856. 

* Serial 869, 34 Cong., i Sess., House Report 200, pp. SS4, 886. 



The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History 566 

that voted to send the first hundred Sharps rifles sent to the territory ; 
evidence is all but conclusive that these first hundred rifles were 
partially paid for from donated funds already in the hands of the 
company's treasurer ; it was through the company's agents that these 
and other arms were purchased, and on them the bills were drawn ; 
and finally the arms were consigned to the company's agents in 
Kansas and distributed under their supervision. Moreover it was 
the officers and friends of the company that supplied more than half 
the arms sent to Kansas, and sent them out in such season as to 
afiford the maximum of protection to those fighting for the free- 
state cause ; many of the arms sent out by other organizations either 
never reached the territory, or arrived too late to be of real service. 
Were the New England Emigrant Aid Company and other 
organizations justifiable in sending arms to Kansas? Rather, would 
any other course have been weak and cowardly? The New Eng- 
land company probably understood the exact conditions in Kansas 
better than did even the administration in Washington. Each week 
scores of letters from every important point in the territory came to 
the Boston office, and the most important were carefully read to the 
directors by Secretary Webb at the weekly executive meeting. The 
gentlemen that constituted this directorate were sober, honest, 
patriotic men ; they could hardly be called abolitionists. They had 
induced their friends and neighbors to go to Kansas ; when the crisis 
came, they stood by their compatriots with manly courage and openly 
informed the President at Washington that they had sent arms to 
Kansas.' The policy adopted by the New England Emigrant Aid 
Company was indorsed and followed a year later by every Kansas 
aid committee in the North. The arming of the free-state settlers 
was not an act of aggression, but purely a measure for protection 
and defense. The winning of Kansas was a great and important 
victory for Freedom. Here the slave power received its first stun- 
ning defeat, a defeat in which Sharps rifles were decisive factors. 

W. H. ISELY. 

' Lawrence. Life of La'tfreiice, p. 95. 



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